Democratic Emotions

Abstract

The study of emotions, marginalised in mainstream democratic theory, increasingly challenges the mono-dimensional focus of standard accounts of institutional politics on formal mechanisms of legitimacy, accountability and transparency. Drawing attention to states of feeling that mobilise – or demobilise – democratic citizenries, studies of emotions disclose and affirm their growing centrality in processes of political participation (Hall, 2005; Krause 2010; Morrell 2010; Kingston 2011; Fleming 2012). This centrality – confirmed by the political mobilisations of the Arab Spring and the protests targeting the management of the financial crisis – opens up the space for addressing a series of questions about the type of insights that current accounts of emotions offer into the workings of contemporary democracies. Normatively, where does one draw the line between emotions ‘fit’ for democratic purposes and emotions that undermine democratic values? For example, is anger a democratic emotion that studies of democratic representation need to take into account? Can we talk of democratic “days of rage”? And what hopes are compatible with a dialogical ethos? Prudentially, how can legitimate affect be politically effective in changing the terms of the debate? Under what conditions do individual emotions translate into meaningful collective action? This panel seeks to explore these difficult questions and the contributions included here theorise politically relevant emotions with a view to illuminating pressing contemporary issues

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